She closed her eyes and counted to five.
It’s going to be fine. Just write him an email in a few days. Take some creepy pictures and post them on Tumblr. Give him a reason to remember you. Give him a reason to miss you, Vee. Maybe the fastest way to most men’s hearts was through their stomachs, but the fastest way to Tim’s heart was through mystery. For all he knew, she was having a blast in Washington. Heck, for all he knew, Pier Pointe was full of guys twice as cool as him. Tim who? Oh, Tim Steinway? He was okay, she guessed, but the Washington boys were better. Darker. Way more dangerous.
The sky rumbled overhead and she sighed, tipping her face up to stare at the dark clouds above. If it kept raining, she’d be stuck in the house all summer. She’d never meet anyone, let alone any boys. Not that her dad would mind. Rain was a convenient excuse for staying in rather than going out. Except that when Vee tipped her chin away from the sky, she came face-to-face with a wide-eyed kid standing at the edge of the trees. She blinked at him, startled by his sudden appearance, perplexed by where he had come from. He looked older than Tim by at least a few years—probably still a teen, but definitely out of high school. Vee peered at him, waiting for him to speak. But rather than talking, his mouth curled up into a grin that gave her the creeps. It was a crazed sort of smile, the kind only a serial killer wore. Disturbed enough to take a single backward step, with her movement she seemed to shake him from his otherwise static state. And yet, despite the chill he’d sent down the backs of her arms, when he turned and bolted out of view, she yelled out after him.
“Hey!” She was too curious not to follow. Rather than turning back to the house, she dashed to the end of the orchard’s row. Someone whooped in the distance. Had it been the creepy wide-eyed boy, or someone else? She could hear girls laughing. No, there was more than just the boy. There was a whole group of them, people out in the forest beyond the house who she could only assume shouldn’t have been there.
“Hello?” She waited for someone to respond, for someone to surface. There was another round of laughter. Then, a scream.
Vee froze. Blanched. The cry sounded terrified, a yell she imagined emanated from the throat of someone who had stumbled onto a dead body in the heart of the woods. She hovered at the edge of the trees, wondering whether she should investigate or go get her dad. Forget it, she thought. You don’t need him. For a guy who had once pretended to be a vampire in his spare time, her dad could be really lame. He tried to come off as hip with his music and cool because he didn’t have some boring office job, but in the end he was just like every other adult: Dull. Ordinary. Totally boring. If Vee told him she heard screaming in the woods, she doubted he’d jump up and announce they were going to investigate. He’d just say it wasn’t any of their business and call the cops.
But Vee wanted it to be her business. This was her home, no matter how temporary, and that weird-looking guy had stared right into her eyes before taking off into the trees. What if he knew Vee had overheard that scream? What if that guy had been a lookout, and now Vee was a witness to some sort of crime? True, she hadn’t seen anything, but maybe that didn’t matter. Maybe just hearing the cry made her a target.
The mere idea of it should have scared her, but it ignited a flame of exhilaration inside her chest instead. Wait until Tim finds out, she thought. No girl would be able to touch her, not if she could lay claim to hearing a murder take place. Not if, perhaps, she had seen the killer before he’d plunged a knife into his victim in the thick of the forest behind her summer home.
She cast a quick glance over her shoulder toward the house, then looked back to the wooded area a dozen yards away. She wouldn’t go far, just a few feet in. But before she could duck into the pines, the sky cracked open overhead.
The rain came fast and Vee yelped as the cold deluge soaked through her pajama top. “Crap!” Cradling her phone against her chest, she did an about-face and ran for the house, desperate to keep her tether to the outside world dry. By the time she bounded into the kitchen, the rain had soaked her through.
She dashed across the living room, sprinted up the stairs, and, shivering, veered into the room she had designated as her own. It was still Spartan; just a mattress pushed into the corner, the furniture her dad had bought for her still dismantled, and her boxes of stuff lined up against one of the walls. She’d been careful to mark all her moving boxes with a giant V across the top flaps, not needing her dad “accidentally” rifling through her stuff. Her ghost books were in there. She’d even managed to get ahold of an old copy of The Exorcist at the library. It was so tattered that she’d shoved it into her backpack and walked out with it, convincing herself that nobody would miss it. It was just a ratty old paperback, too worn-out to be of use to anyone. That book was her summer reading, perfect for stormy nights.